RED FILM (2018) | SARA CWYNAR

Red Film (2018) is the third part of a film trilogy, along with Soft Film (2016) and Rose Gold (2017), that questions how desire is manifested through objects. Although the work focuses on the contemporary economy of infinite choice and the production lines of beauty and value, it delves more deeply into the subject of colour. It takes a lucid, critical look at how colour operates politically, socially, and historically, especially with regard to the definition of beauty. Ubiquitous references to colour create connections among consumer objects, artworks, and a broader concept of capitalism. The narrative is structured by a male voice and the artist’s own, as they quote from writings by historical figures and contemporary critical thinkers. Their observations on colour are linked and superimposed, as a constellation of images illustrating how colour is used to reify constructions of gender, race, and class flash across the screen. Using a philosophical tone, Red Film critiques the constant and persuasive pressure exerted by capitalism to conform and consume, and it questions how the names of some of modern art history’s most famous artists are used to sell merchandise.

In Red Film, Sara Cwynar’s compilation of signifiers, images, and quotations consolidates our complex relationship with desire in an opulent world of options and choices, of things to buy and to look at. With the inclusion of reproductions of artworks and references to male figures from modern art, such as Cézanne, it becomes obvious that the history of Western art has contributed to creating many market values by using artists and artworks for marketing purposes.